Who is a Terrorist?

Abhijit Guha

Recent controversy arose over the use of the term "terrorist" to refer to the militant freedom fighters of Bengal in the undergraduate history honours question paper in Vidyasagar University. According to a report published in the print media the Vice-Chancellor of the university Professor Dipak Kar made a public apology by saying: "The word 'terrorist' was the result of a mistranslation. The original English text had the term 'militant nationalism,' which was wrongly translated into Bengali as "Santrasbadi" (terrorist). It was a typographical mistake, combined with an individual's lapse in judgement" (The States­man 11 July 2025, p.4). Profes­sors responsible for drafting the aforesaid questions were sus­pended and the student unions protested in the university campus and local historians and civil rights groups have also joined to condemn the lapse on the part of the Vidyasagar University authorities. Meanwhile, a former Vice-Chancellor of Vidyasagar University, Professor Ranjan Chakrabarti, himself a historian has written a post-editorial article in a Bengali daily in which he recommended the use of the phrase "Revolutionary national­ist movement" or "Armed Revolutionary nationalist movement" and opined that one should avoid using the term "Revolutionary terrorist" owing to its colonial historical legacy (The Ei Samay 16 July 2025, p.8).

Lexicon & Encyclopedia
Under the above background, this writer would look into the issue of terrorism and terrorist from a much wider perspective. The Webster's New World Dictionary of American English de­fined the word 'terror' as 'intense fear' , and 'terrorism' as the 'act of terrorizing', 'use of force or threats to demoralise, intimidate, and subjugate, esp. such use as a political weapon or policy' (Webster's New World Dictionary of American English, 1988, p. 1382). In the Oxford Learner's English Dictionary terrorism is defined as 'the use of violent action in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to act'.

Encyclopedia Britannica elaborated the nature of terrorism outlining the history of the use of the term and its relativity. Britannica succinctly noted:

It was first coined in the 1790s to refer to the terror used during the French Revolution by the revolutionaries against their opponents. ...Al­though terrorism in this usage implies an act of violence by a state against its domestic enemies, since the 20th century the term has been applied most frequently to violence aimed, either directly or indirectly, at governments in an effort to influence policy or topple an existing regime (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Interestingly, under changing in­ternational and national scenarios in the post-colonial era countries were found to be engaged in international terrorism and justified the acts under the pretext of supporting national liberation (Ibid). So, it was no more individuals, groups and po­litical parties but countries were also found to be involved in promoting and supporting terrorism. For example, Alexander L George who was a Graham H Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University in his edited book Western State Terrorism (1991) pro­vided an overview of US terrorist activities in the Middle East and Central America [1].

All these bring people to a typology of terrorism. One popular typology identified three broad classes of terrorism (i) revolutionary, (ii) sub-revolution­ary, and (iii) establishment. Although this typology has been criticised as inexhaustive, it provided a useful framework for understanding and evaluating terrorist activities. Interestingly, while revolutionary and sub-revolutionary terrorisms were open to declare their objectives, for example, communist liberation war in Vietnam and activities of the African National Congress to end apartheid in South Africa. But the establishment terrorism is more difficult to identify because of its secrecy and clandestine nature. The ex­amples are: the alleged engage­ment of the Soviet Union and its allies in widespread support of international terrorism during the Cold War; in the 1980s the United States supported rebel groups in Africa that allegedly engaged in acts of terrorism, and various Muslim countries (e.g., Iran and Syria) purportedly provided logistical and financial aid to Islamic revolutionary groups engaged in campaigns against Israel, the United States, and some Muslim countries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries (Encyclopedia Britannica.) Joshua Wright, an undergraduate student at Birmingham City University, UK in his article perceptively noted:

It was argued by some aca­demics that in certain circumstances state terrorism is nec­essary. The example provided was that of the UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, who then sell them onto terrorists. This could be considered a form of state terrorism... Further­more this provides economic benefits, as it allows for the sustaining of jobs in the U.K. The U.K.'s arms trade with Saudi Arabia may be controversial, but, according to one academic interviewed, secures the state economy and maintains the jobs of UK citizens (Wright, 2019-20:204­2014).

The tentacles of state terrorism are not only confined to the country of its origin but spread over other countries and have become a global affair.

Relativity
The famous quote "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is not only thought-provoking but it also needs to be placed in its proper context and history. The quote originated in 1976 from the book "Harry's Game". It was written by Gerald Seymour, a British author known for his thriller novels. The quote simply revealed the relativity of the term terrorism. Individuals, groups or countries engaged in violent acts can be perceived differently depending on one's perspective or political beliefs. Thus, in the Middle East the response against Israel as an aggressor and Palestinians as the victims despite the involvement of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation continues. Today Western governments regard al-Qaeda as terrorists, but to al-Qaeda the terrorists are America and Brit­ain (Jeff Aronson, Clinical phar­macologist, Oxford quoted in an article in the British Medical Journal, vol.324, 9 February 2002, p.355).

By and large, studies on terrorism have been criticised for not being able to develop an acceptable definition of the term and for its 'poor research methods and procedures, in particular, its over-reliance on second­ary information and general failure to undertake primary re­search' (Jackson, Gunning and Smyth, 2007).

In Lieu Of A Conclusion
The allurement of relativity and failure to develop at least a working definition of terrorism often has an obfuscating effect to arrive at an objective assessment of terrorism. In this case the studies by anthropologists may sometime become more illuminating than the political scientists. Because, anthropological studies are empirical and basically oriented from an emic perspective. Most of the studies done by political scientists on terrorism have been done without understanding the views of the terrorists themselves and based mainly on secondary and archival data. For one thing the views of actors and stake­holders other than the terrorists are not important nor is it necessary to say that secondary or archival data has no importance in the study of terrorism. In fact, important secondary information on the increase of the proportion of civilian deaths during armed conflicts was collected from secondary sources. In this respect the study of one anthropologist on terrorism may be mentioned. The name of the anthropologist is Jeffrey Sluka who had done first hand research with people defined as 'terrorists' in their natural setting in Ireland [Sluka, J., 1995. Domination, resistance, and political culture in Northern Ireland's Catholic-Nationalist ghettos. Critique of Anthropology, 15(1), 71-102]. Sluka maintained that anthropology can make a major contribution to terrorism studies by being empirical and listening to the voices of the terrorists themselves. Sluka concluded in a paper published in 2008:

We have broken the taboo of 'never talking to terrorists', and by presenting their perspectives and experiences have tended strongly to humanise rather than dehumanise them. In anti-ter­rorism propaganda, 'terrorists' are presented as evil cowards motivated by hatred, but the research we have done with militants refutes this. Thus, anthropologists have made, and continue to make, a major contribution by exposing the concept of terrorism to critical scrutiny and by demonstrating the many political, social, and cultural complexities underlying what is often simply telescoped by state authorities and the media into faceless, evil, irrational 'terrorism' (Sluka, 2008: 167-183). Suffice it to say that there will be few takers in the governmental and policy making circles who would be ready to digest the true anthropological approach and spirit to the study of terrorism.

References:
Chomsky, N. (1987). 'International Terrorism: Image and Reality'. Crime and Social Justice. No. 27/28: 172-200.
George, L.A. (Editor). (1991). West­ern State Terrorism Polity.
Jackson, R., Gunning, J., Smyth, M.B. (2007). 'The Case for a Critical Terrorism Studies.' Paper Prepared for delivery at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 30- September 2, 2007.
Sluka, J., (1995). 'Domination, resistance, and political culture in Northern Ireland's Catholic-Nationalist ghettos'. Critique of Anthropology, 15(1), 71-102.
Sluka, J., (2008). 'Terrorism and taboo: an anthropological perspective on political violence against civilians'. Critical Stud­ies on Terrorism. 1:2, 167-183. Wright, J., (2019-2020). 'State terrorism: are academics deliberately ignoring it?' Journal of Global Faultlines. 6(2): 204-214.

Footnote
1. Noam Chomsky's article 'In­ternational Terrorism: Image and Reality' began with a story as told by St. Augustine. The story was about a pirate cap­tured by Alexander the Great who asked him "how he dares molest the sea". "How dare you molest the whole world?" The pirate replied." Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor' (Chomsky, 1987: 172-200).

Abhijit Guha, Former Professor in Anthro­pology, Vidyasagar University. [email: aguhavu@gmail.com]

Back to Home Page

Frontier Autumn Number
Vol 58, No. 14 - 17, Sep 28 - Oct 25, 2025